Based on need, client services and hours are authorized only by the City & County of San Francisco Department of Human Services. DHS workers are also responsible for increasing and decreasing service hours.

If authorized, IHSS Consortium provides the following services:

• Sweeping, vacuuming, washing floors, and dusting
• Washing kitchen counters and sinks, cleaning and defrosting the refrigerator, changing and making the bed
• Shopping, cooking meals to serve or to store for later, meal cleanup, and menu planning
• Washing, drying, ironing, folding, and putting away laundry; doing minor mending
• Heavy cleaning, including removing hazardous debris, clearing out a room filled with junk, shampooing very dirty rugs, or scrubbing cupboards that have not been cleaned in years.
  
  Note: Any heavy cleaning must be approved by the Dept. of Human Services and is usually approved just once, when service begins.

• Bathing, dressing, and grooming
• Assisting with bowel, bladder, and menstrual care; emptying catheter or colostomy bags
• Helping client in and out of a bed or a wheelchair; helping onto and off a seat or a toilet; and helping with repositioning
• Feeding
• Going with client to the client’s medical appointments or other health-related places (for example, being fitted for health devices or special clothing)
• Help in self-administering oxygen or medicine (for example, reminding client to take medicine or getting medicine for client)

Note: The client is financially responsible for any purchase of groceries or outside services, such as laundry. The client is also expected to provide any needed tools, cleaning supplies, and gloves for heavy cleaning. The Consortium provides latex gloves for personal care.

• Administering medication or giving injections
• Urine testing
• Wound care
• Catheter care and colostomy irrigation; treatments requiring sterile procedures
• Enemas, digital stimulation, or the insertion of suppositories
• Tube feeding, suctioning
• Range-of-motion exercise as treatment
• Placing the client in a standing frame
  
  Note: IHSS Consortium regulations state that a nurse or a doctor must order and supervise paramedical services. Providers do not perform any paramedical services unless the client’s doctor has provided the Consortium with written authorization and the Provider has had training from a professional, knows the risks involved, and knows what to do if there is an emergency.